


King's Dead

by carolyncaves



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I also torture Gladio a little too, Noctis Whump, Phoenix Downs, Stabbing, Status Effects, Temporary Character Death, Video Game Mechanics, Whump, emotionally, plus minor cameos from Regis and Clarus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-24 21:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17108366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolyncaves/pseuds/carolyncaves
Summary: Noctis slips away from a Citadel party and is viciously attacked when he’s alone on the roof. Gladio and Ignis arrive and revive him with a phoenix down, but it has an unfortunate effect on fifteen-year-old Noct.





	King's Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GigCactus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GigCactus/gifts).



> GigCactus - Happy holidays! I hope I made Noctis suffer enough for you. <3 (I liked all your requests actually and was inspired to write [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16923279) by another one. It didn't quite fit your brief in the end and it came out very holiday-themed so I posted it outside the exchange, but that one’s for you too if you want it. :)
> 
> You can find the previous entries in the phoenix down headcanon saga [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14549586/chapters/33619182) and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219986) (yes I did cleverly write a fic in an existing headcanon for an anonymous exchange without realizing it until it was too late), but all you really need to know going into this fic is that a phoenix down gives you a temporary boost after it revives you and then drops you off a cliff when it wears off.

The party was loud, and all the adult guests were getting drunk (drunker than usual, anyway) because it was New Year’s. Noctis had endured enough small talk that he thought he should be exempt for the next decade. Nobody else saw it that way, though. If Noctis wanted some air, he was going to have to find it himself.

He slipped away from Gladio at the first possible opportunity.

Gladio had just turned eighteen and was suddenly being extra strict about making sure Noctis had a babysitter literally every minute of his life, even here in the Citadel. But Noctis was an expert at stealing moments when he could. Once he was out of Gladio’s sight, it was easy to slip out of the ballroom and up two floors to the roof.

This tower of the Citadel was topped with an outdoor lounge – fancy low couches and soft lighting and a 360-degree view of Insomnia. It was deserted for now. Everyone would come out for the fireworks at midnight, but it was freezing, and so high up, with the wind … Noctis was shivering immediately. He wouldn’t be able to stay long in just his suit jacket. It was nice having it to himself, though – the glittery city below him on every side, the Wall above him (and faintly the stars), the silence of the night. Noctis crossed over to the railing and leaned against it, looking out over the bright expanse of Insomnia.

He wondered if it would be dumb to try to use some fire magic to keep warm. He wasn’t ready to go back yet. He wasn’t looking forward to Gladio’s lecture.

Something, some noise, made him realize he wasn’t alone anymore, and time seemed to slip slower as he twisted around and pressed back against the railing and took in the stranger standing behind him with a knife in his hand.

“The king is dead,” the man said as he took a step forward. “Long live the king.”

His dad wasn’t dead. And if he was, that would make Noctis king.

Oh.

Noctis started to slide sideways along the railing, to put space between him and the man so he could think, and in the same breath started to reach for the armiger, but a hand grabbed his arm – hard, violent, it hurt – and the man punched him sharp in the stomach.

Not punched. Stabbed. The hilt of knife was in the man’s hand, right up against his nicest suit jacket.

The blade reappeared inch by inch, like a magic trick in slow motion. Noctis’ head reeled. He labored to catch up with what was happening. The man was still clenching his arm. He was going to do it again.

Armiger, weapon, _anything now_.

He pulled a dagger out of the armiger and shoved it forward blindly, hoping it would hit the man and hurt him or at least make him back up. Noctis felt another punch just above the first, but the man grunted, and the air around Noctis was empty again. He slumped back with one elbow hooked over the railing because that was the only way he wasn’t going down to the ground.

The man had backed off two steps. He still had his bloody knife in one hand and he was holding his other side and looking at it. Noctis had cut him. He seemed annoyed instead of worried.

Noctis was worried. He sank heavy against the railing and things were starting to hurt.

The man looked back at Noctis. He took a step forward, so Noctis held his dagger out in front of him. It shook, his arm shook, his breath shook as he tried to draw it. “Stop,” he tried to say, to his arm, and the man, and the pain, but it didn’t come out right. “Help.” That was better, but too quiet to matter. There was no one around to hear.

The man reached for his arm and Noct slashed at him, but he was slipping lower and lower against the railing and his aim was off. The man caught his wrist and twisted it viciously, and the dagger vanished into sparks. A hard punch higher in his chest, and that one hurt a _lot_ , an inescapable squeeze – but now the man was leaning all his weight down on Noctis. There was a groan of metal, and then Noctis was falling. He slammed into the marble floor of the terrace. It was cold, cold, colder than he already was, and the ruins of the railing dug into his back. He had to be careful with his back, he thought reflexively, while another corner of his brain pressed that he’d be lucky to survive long enough to worry about whether or not he was aggravating it.

He’d been here before. Torn apart on the cold ground. There weren’t supposed to be demons inside the wall.

“Six,” the man growled on top of Noctis. He struggled to his hands and knees, grappling for his knife where it was still in Noctis. Noctis called his dagger into his hand and drove up into him as hard as he could.

The man howled in pain, falling to the side, and there was a shower of sparks as the dagger in the man’s gut disintegrated into the armiger. Noctis tried to scoot away, slide himself across the marble. He turned himself a little, but his legs were clumsy and the railing penned him in.

The man’s hand landed beside his head. He crouched over him with a ferocious scowl on his face. He yanked the knife from its home in Noctis’ chest and jabbed it up in another vicious strike. Fire punched through his neck, and Noctis felt an awful terrible tug.

Noctis used every drop of screaming adrenaline in his limbs to try to get the man off, sideways, _away_ , and the man gave a hoarse shout and scrabbled at the slick marble as he slid over the edge into the bright void beside them. Then everything was quiet.

Noctis couldn’t breathe very well. He reached for his throat and his fingers found the handle of the knife. It was slick, but he managed to get it out. That didn’t help. The cold gusty wind wouldn’t leave him alone. It kept biting him, gouging his chest, digging into his stomach.

Between one moment and the next, Gladio was there. Gladio was on his hands and knees over him, eyes wider and rounder than Noctis had ever seen them. Gladio’s hands were on his neck. Gladio was shouting, at him and at someone off to the side. Noctis opened his mouth to tell him the man was gone, he was safe, he could save the lecture for later when Noctis wasn’t so … but hot liquid came out instead of words.

Then the cold ground wasn’t beneath him anymore and he wasn’t sure where he was. Somewhere the wind couldn’t reach. He was scared, but Gladio’s voice rumbled beneath his cheek. He couldn’t make out the words. He didn’t like it. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t.

 

 

 

Someone set him on fire.

\---------

When Gladio realized Noct had given him the slip, he was pissed. Couldn’t the kid follow protocol for one stinkin’ party?

When the party guests started screaming, Gladio got worried.

When his just-a-precaution earpiece crackled to life and his dad said, “Assassination attempt foiled, HM secure, status of HRH?” Gladio felt a fear he’d never known in his life.

The Crownsguard sprang to life, securing the ballroom and corralling the guests. Gladio said _something_ into his wrist microphone – he would never remember the exact words, but later his dad would tell him he’d told the truth – and then Ignis was saying, “He does like the roof.” Then they were running. Gladio took the stairs three at a time.

When Gladio found Noctis choking and bloody on the marble floor of the rooftop lounge, he barely made it over to him before his knees gave out.

A section of the railing had collapsed, which Gladio ignored after the fraction of a second it took him to decide there was no immediate threat. Noct was past white into gray, and his suit had holes in it … no, _he_ had holes in _him_ , and thick blood was pumping out a gash in his neck.

“Phoenix down!” He shouted after Ignis’ coattails. “Stay with me, Noct! Look at me.” Noct’s eyes darted, pupils blown wide and helpless, but Gladio didn’t know if he was seeing him. He tried put his hands over the wound, like maybe he could slow the bleeding enough to keep what was happening from happening, but they were too big or Noct’s neck was too small or _something_ , and the blood just slipped through his fingers. “Noct, come on!”

When Noct’s lips parted and red spilled out of the corners of his mouth, a wounded noise tore itself out of Gladio’s chest. He lifted Noct up, tucked his head into the crook of his arm, pawed at his hair. “I’ve got you, Noct, I’ve got you, just stay with me.” It didn’t matter, though. Noct’s gaze was going slack under the glow of the Wall, and all Gladio could do was hold his scrawny frame until his plaintive movements gave way to a terrible, empty stillness.

Until he was dead.

Assassinated at fifteen. Attacked at a party he’d whined about coming to because he’d rather stay home and play video games. Killed in cold blood because Gladio wasn’t around to stop it.

Gladio crushed his kid prince to his chest and refused to think about anything. He counted his own heartbeats while he waited for Ignis to get back.

At a hundred and seventeen, Ignis slid to his knees on the bloody marble and shoved a bright feather against Noct’s blood-soaked chest. Gladio took one of his curled, bloody hands (so small, too small, half the size of his own) and lay it on top. There was a bright glimmering swirl of magic, and Noctis heaved a gasping breath.

Relief flooded Gladio so violently he wondered if he could drown in it.

Every muscle in Noct’s body tensed. He reached for his throat, fumbled at his chest.

“You’re all right now,” Gladio said – to Noct as reassurance, and to the universe as something like a prayer.

The light of the armiger danced in the air. Gladio was so caught off guard by Noct’s warp away that he didn’t even realize that’s what he was doing until his hands slipped through the air, the only thing in his hold an after-image.

The real Noct was standing fifteen feet away holding a dagger out in front of him with both hands. Pointing the business end at Gladio and Ignis.

“Noct, what the hell?” Gladio said, scrambling to his feet.

“Stop it!” Noct cried. “Stay away from me!” Noct’s hands, hell, his whole body was shaking like he was on speed, and his eyes were huge. His face was sheet white.

“Noctis, it’s me, it’s Gladio. Everything’s fine, we gave you a phoenix down.” He edged half a step closer.

Noct lurched backward. “You’re not Gladio,” he whispered. “You’re not. You’re burning me.”

A hand on Gladio’s arm. Ignis. “The effects of a phoenix down can be overwhelming, especially for young people. This is Noct’s first experience of one.”

“You’re saying he’s on a bad trip,” Gladio concluded. All right, they could deal with that. Noct was a little freaked out, sure, but all they had to do was wait for the phoenix down to wear off.

\---------

Noctis was on fire, and these daemons had stolen his friends’ faces.

He felt like he was overflowing, searing blood pressing out under every inch of his skin. The lights shone too bright, and time stretched strangely. He was burning up. If he didn’t do something soon he’d be nothing but ash, a black smudge on the marble.

“Where the hell is the rest of the Guard?” the Gladio-daemon said.

“They’re coming,” the Ignis-daemon answered, “but they’re scrambling to secure the Citadel against any additional threats. They were barely willing to let me back out of the ballroom.”

Help was on its way. Or maybe it was help for the daemons. Noctis couldn’t think.

It didn’t matter. He had to move, to act. It was singing in his veins.

There was water, a low fountain in the center of the roof. Maybe it would save him, quench the flames even though he couldn’t see them. He flung his dagger toward the shallow basin and skipped through space to meet it.

Empty. No relief. Noctis wanted to cry. It was just a trap to lure him in. Noctis spun to see the daemons running toward him. They were closing fast.

They wouldn’t catch him. Not this time. Noctis would die first. Or was that what they wanted?

It didn’t matter. He had to act. He took aim and threw.

\---------

Gladio had darted toward Noctis when he started casting around wildly in the empty fountain. He seemed bewildered it was drained for winter, and Gladio thought maybe he could tackle him to the ground while he was distracted.

He was only halfway there when Noct snapped into focus on him, whipped his arm around, and hurled his dagger in Gladio’s direction.

“Damn it,” Gladio growled, dropping to the ground just fast enough to dodge the throw. Then his brain caught up with the dagger’s trajectory and he wished he’d taken the hit. He twisted fast enough to see the dagger land two feet from the sheer edge of the terrace and Noctis appear on top of it.

“Six,” Gladio breathed, “he’s gonna kill himself.”

“Again, you mean,” Ignis murmured, helping him to his feet.

“Doubt he did it himself the first time,” Gladio replied.

Noct held a rigid battle stance. The wind snatched at his torn dress clothes and tugged his hair into wild shapes. They matched his wild, hunted expression. There was nothing behind him but empty sky and the lights of the city dizzyingly far below.

“Don’t come any closer,” he said, taking half a step backward that made Gladio’s pulse skyrocket. “Where’s the real Gladio? Where is he? Why isn’t he here?”

“It’s me, Noct, I’m right here.”

“Then why won’t you help me?” Noct whimpered.

“The phoenix down is helping you, Noct,” Ignis said, stepping up beside Gladio. “That feeling will pass, very soon.”

“Not soon enough,” Gladio muttered, and Ignis jerked his head in agreement.

“You’re lying!” Noct shouted. “You’re hurting me just like before, and I won’t let you do it again!” He took another step back.

Gladio honestly didn’t know if a phoenix down would help someone after a fifty-story fall, and he didn’t want to find out. “All right, Noct, all right, we won’t come any closer, okay?” He tried to measure the distance between himself and Noct and Noct and the edge. “But we have to make a deal. You have to take two giant steps forward. Can you do that for me?”

“I’m not doing anything for you!”

“Noctis, please,” Ignis said. “You’ve got to …”

Noct’s eyes rolled up, and the dagger in his hands vanished in a shower of sparks, and his knees buckled.

Gladio lunged forward, sliding to the ground, and he managed to catch Noct before he could whack his head on the marble and brace himself against the groaning railing before one or both of them could fall off the edge of the Citadel. He dragged Noct away from the open sky, away from danger, and when they were far enough from both he collapsed in relief with Noct in his lap. Ignis hovered anxiously over them.

For a few seconds Noct just lay in Gladio’s arms, breathing unsteadily. Then he curled toward him, trying to pull his tired limbs into a little ball. “Gladio,” he whispered into his shirt. “Gladio. Gladio.”

“I’m right here, bud.”

“Gladio,” Noct whimpered. “He tried to kill me.” He tugged urgently at Gladio’s shirt, like he was trying to crawl inside him. “He tried to kill me.”

He did kill you, Gladio didn’t say. You were dead for a hundred and seventeen heartbeats, and every second of it is gonna haunt me for the rest of my life.

Instead he said, “You’re all right now. I’m right here,” and curled Noct’s knees up into his lap, so all of Noctis could fit in the circle of Gladio’s arms

“He got me,” Noct warbled. “I tried to stop him, but. But he ...”

“You’re all right,” Gladio interrupted, squeezing Noct tighter. “You did good, Noct, you got him. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere, so you can rest. You hear me? You’re safe, you can rest.”

Noct calmed down a couple of notches, and when he eventually spoke again he seemed less hysterical. “Sorry.”

“What the hell for?”

“I didn’t know it was you. You were trying to help me, and I was making it hard.”

What, like ‘sneaking up to the roof alone during a high-profile event’ hard? “Don’t worry about it,” Gladio told him. “You were out of your mind. It’s all part of the job.”

Noct nodded into his chest, and Gladio stroked his head and focused on the feeling of each warm damp puff of Noct’s breath against his shirt. When Noct’s whole body slackened it almost gave Gladio a heart attack, but he was just going to sleep. Conked out after the phoenix down. Safe in his Shield’s arms.

The Crownsguard appeared pretty quickly, and not long after that the heavy tread of Gladio’s dad crossed the marble lounge, following the metallic limp of the King. Gladio couldn’t look at either of their faces. He settled for the King’s shoes. Was he supposed to let go of Noct? He didn’t want to.

When his dad spoke, he heard it twice – once in person and once in his earpiece. “HRH Noctis secure. Incident closed with zero casualties.”

**Author's Note:**

> There are *so many* hours of meetings and hearings and investigations when the prince you’re responsible for gets killed on your watch. Gladio knows he deserves all of them. But when that same prince spends those meetings climbing the walls of the hearing room antechamber because he doesn’t want to be more than three feet away from you ever again, you tend to get off kind of light. Instead of being fired or banished or executed for dereliction of duty, Gladio’s punishment is six months of extra training with Cor three times a week and the single worst conversation he’s ever had (or ever will have) with his dad in his life.


End file.
